“The improvement in auto production was slower than expected, as the surge in COVID-19 confirmed cases in January slowed down some business activities in Japan,” he explained.
A steel trader in Tokyo shared that steel sales had been increasing since mid-February on the anticipation of further price rise. “We expect long steel sales in February to increase on month, though flat sales haven’t improved as much as longs because of the softened supply tightness,” he said.
Japan’s steel sales to domestic buyers declined in January but those for shipbuilders increased as they had been operating at high levels with more backlog orders at hand. “This had led to the increase in plate sales, and firm plate demand is expected to continue,” the trader predicted.
Japan’s plate sales in January totaled 750,360 tonnes, up 5.4% on year but down 14.6% on month, the JISF data showed. The on-month decline was largely due to the fact that there were fewer business days in January because of holidays.
Japan’s Jan finished carbon steel sales breakdowns (incomplete)
In January, Japan’s carbon steel exports fell 2.5% on year and down 4.1% on month to 1.72 million tonnes. “The decline in exports was partly because the relining work of a blast furnace in Nippon Steel,” the trader said.
Nippon Steel, Japan’s largest integrated mill started relining its No.3 blast furnace with 4,300 cu m at Nagoya works in central Japan at the end of January, and it plans to restart the BF in June, as reported.
Written by Yoko Manabe, yoko.manabe@mysteel.com
This article has been published under an exchange agreement between MySteel Global and SteelMint.
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